Single crystal growth of BaFe$_{2-x}$Co$_x$As$_2$ without fluxing agent

TL;DR

This paper presents a straightforward method for growing high-quality BaFe$_{2-x}$Co$_x$As$_2$ single crystals without flux, achieving large, well-formed samples with excellent current-carrying capabilities.

Contribution

A new flux-free growth technique for BaFe$_{2-x}$Co$_x$As$_2$ single crystals using polycrystalline precursors and high-temperature processing.

Findings

Crystals grown without flux are of high quality and large size.

The crystals exhibit very high current-carrying capacity.

Growth temperature can reach up to 1493 K.

Abstract

We report a simple, reliable method to grow high quality BaFe$_{2-x}$Co$_x$As$_2$ single crystal samples without using any fluxing agent. The starting materials for the single crystal growth come from well-crystallized polycrystalline samples and the highest growing temperature can be 1493 K. The as-grown crystals have typical dimensions of 4$\times3\times$0.5 mm$^3$ with c-axis perpendicular to the shining surface. We find that the samples have very large current carrying ability, indicating that the samples have good potential technological applications.